


Search & Rescue

by Xparrot



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Action, Brother Feels, Gen, Holodeck, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Magic Scifi, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29768214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: Sabotage of the latest KaibaLand project strands Kaiba Seto in a frozen wilderness. Mokuba goes to his brother's rescue, but with the temperature dropping and snow building higher, who's going to save him?
Relationships: Kaiba Mokuba & Kaiba Seto
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25





	Search & Rescue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gnine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gnine/gifts).



> I wrote this fic for my sister for Christmas...uh...six years ago? And finally finished it last week. It's never too late for Kaiba brothers feels, am I right?  
> Thanks to Gnine for the beta!

The wind howled over the mountain peaks, wild and forlorn, like a wolf divided from its pack. Mokuba shivered, thrusting his hands deeper in his pockets in a vain search for warmth. His fingers were prickling with chill. The chemical heating pads had gone cold by now, and the insulated gloves might as well have been latex for all the protection they provided.

The wind lashed his cheeks, nipping at the narrow gap of skin between his scarf and hat. He should have on ski goggles, but the only pairs in stock had been too big, and there hadn't been any time to waste getting a child's size. Besides, he hadn't anticipated being in the cold for long. Ten, fifteen minutes at most; but he'd been trudging up this mountainside for at least that, and no end was in sight.

There wasn't much of anything in sight, besides rocky crags and eddies of swirling snow, glittering in the moonlight like falling stars. Mokuba stopped to take stock, putting his back to the wind as he reluctantly drew his hand from his pocket to check his watch.

Blinking ice off his eyelashes, he squinted at the flashing display. Then he said a word in English that a boy his age probably shouldn't know. Definitely more than fifteen minutes—it had been almost half an hour. That was bad on several levels, but given the steadily falling temperature, one had priority.

Mokuba turned a circle in the snow, scanning the mountainside. As far as he could see there were only steep, snow-draped summits, uninterrupted wilderness stretching in all directions, under a cloud-strewn night sky. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Mokuba shouted across the slopes, "Nii-sama! Where are you? Can you hear me?"

He cocked his head, straining his ears, but only the wind answered, its howl climbing to a whistling shriek.

It really was quite convincing; Mokuba wondered if it was a generated sound or a recording. He yanked his hat back down over his ears, stamping his feet in the snow to get some feeling back in his toes. The snow crunched authentically under his boots. The top layer would be real powder, as was the nearer stuff in the air lashing his cheeks. The snow cannon was off now—or should be—but with the temperature so low, none of it would melt.

Really, it didn't matter; the Solid Vision projections of the snow underneath the crystalized water were just as convincing, and even colder. They were programmed to insulate the generated environment from the climate outside, creating any weather desired. You could go skiing in August or have a beach party in January.

A beach party sounded like a pretty awesome idea, right about now...

Mokuba shook his head, forcing his thoughts back on track. Most of the mountaintops around him weren't even physical projections but generated HD images; the actual simulation arena was three hundred meters by two hundred, with a fifty-meter roof. It was not only one of the largest stadium arenas in the world, but the largest indoor ski-slope in the Western hemisphere. And with the patented SV Environmental Progression Technology, KaibaLand USA visitors would be able to hike, mountain-climb, or cross-country ski for kilometers. Downhill skiing was still a work in progress, though Mokuba had recently been brainstorming how to achieve an infinite slope for multiple users.

Infinite was the last thing he needed right now, though. Somewhere in this not-actually-infinite, freezing stadium was Kaiba Seto.

But if Mokuba had been hiking on this slope for almost thirty minutes without hitting a wall, then the supposedly disabled EPT protocols were up and running. He might have only made it a few meters from the door.

Mokuba gritted his chattering teeth. Fine; he could work with that. He'd coded half the EPT system personally; he knew its biases and exploits. There were a few he hadn't gotten around to fixing yet.

Adjusting his backpack's straps, he started moving again, keeping his head and body oriented upslope, while he swung his legs out at an awkward diagonal. He made his gait erratic, some long strides, and some short. In a single individual scenario, the EPT protocols defaulted to generating a virtual treadmill underfoot, based on a predictive model of the user's actions, and adjusting the visual projections to give the illusion of forward progression.

Countering that illusion was a little dizzying. Mokuba swallowed and kept his eyes on his feet, carefully finding his footing as he crab-walked across the snowy terrain. With every other step he felt the ground slide under his feet, as the EPT tried to compensate.

In a few steps he was rewarded by a flicker, just visible in the corner of his eyes, as the surrounding images reset to orient around him. Smirking with grim triumph, he kept going, until he stubbed his boot against a sheer cliff-face, rising out of seeming nowhere.

It was visually textured like rough stone, but when he put his gloved fingers to it, the pixels flickered under the pressure, spreading a faint halo of artificial color through the image of the snowy mountainside.

Leaning his backpack against the wall, Mokuba pushed back his parka's hood to look up at the sky. Navigating by the stars was useless; although the constellations were accurate for the Alps in winter, they would be adjusting with him. Instead of looking at the pinprick lights, he studied the darkness between. Almost directly above were five small, round spots of a uniform shade, that didn't shift position with the adjusting stars—the overhead SV projectors.

Mokuba calculated their arrangement, orienting himself. He was against the western wall, about a quarter of the way within the arena. Keeping one hand to the wall, he continued walking, varying his pace to keep the computer guessing, until the halfway point. Seto's last registered position before the system crash had been close to the center of the arena; he should be within fifty meters, provided he hadn't moved. Or been moved, if there had been an avalanche...

"Nii-sama!" Mokuba shouted again, the icy air burning his lungs. "Where are you?"

Still no answer. His brother could be injured, unable to respond. Or trapped under an SV field, with all sonic vibrations dampened. Or he could be...

Mokuba shook his head hard and pushed himself off the wall, stumbling in the deep snow. That was all right; he needed to keep up an uneven gait to fool the EPT system. Though he would have to remember to write a stumbling algorithm; it was only to be expected under these climate conditions, and the program ought to be able to anticipate it.

He checked his watch again. He'd been in the arena for forty minutes; at this temperature hypothermia was becoming a concern, even in the mountaineering gear.

By now, Seto had been in the arena over two hours, and he hadn't been dressed for these extremes. Mokuba shook his head again and kept walking.

With his head down against the wind, he didn't notice until it was right before him—a flash of movement, so fast it was only a pale blur streaking across his path, counter to the drifting snow.

Mokuba jumped back, tripped and fell into the snowdrift behind him. The water-crystal powder on top scattered as the deeper, SV-generated substance below compressed under him. It didn't sound or feel quite right—a little too dense, more like sand than snow as he sank into it, the individually generated particles clumping and clinging to his limbs. They were freezing, so cold he could still feel it, even after the wind's burn.

As he brushed off the SV particles, he saw another flicker of motion, white against the white snow. Over the wind he heard a growl, quiet, but definitely not imagined.

Mokuba froze, peering through the whirling flakes. He'd lost track of that quick blur in the snow and shadows, but it had been a long, low shape, not wind-blown but moving like a living thing, like some kind of animal. Except that was impossible—the bears and wolves for the survival scenarios were still in the design stages; the CGI models hadn't even been animated yet.

White flakes exploded in a flurry as the creature burst from the snow to launch itself at Mokuba. An armored skull rammed into his chest, knocking him back into the drift. Mokuba raised his arms to defend himself as the creature lunged again—

Only to stop just before impact and settle on Mokuba's boots, pressing up against his shins with a rumbling snarl. Mokuba lowered his arms, staring.

Oh, this could not be good. Did hypothermia cause hallucinations?

He rubbed his eyes, but the white dragon resting its talons on his knees didn't disappear, just arched its neck and stared back at him with brilliant blue eyes. It was tiny, for a dragon, not much larger than a Shiba-Inu—small enough that his brother would be outraged by the humiliation, though the Blue-Eyes didn't seem to mind.

The miniature dragon extended its neck to nudge Mokuba's chin with its muzzle. Mokuba felt the pressure of its touch—of course he could; the creature had been solid enough to knock him down—but there was a frisson of energy, like the static fuzz around plastic sheeting.

He rested his hand on the dragon's back, between its wings. Through his glove he felt, not ridged scales, but that softer static repelling his hand. It was unmistakable; this wasn't a hallucination, but a Solid Vision hologram.

But the only way to produce a Blue-Eyes hologram, even one so tiny, was to have a Blue-Eyes card. And only one person on the planet had those.

Mokuba struggled to his feet. The dragon wound between his legs like an oversized cat as he stared wildly around the snowy mountainside. "Nii-sama? Where are you?"

The arena wasn't yet programmed to interface with the Duel Monsters satellite system to project its own card avatars. This Blue-Eyes had to be generated from a Duel Disk, and even their latest prototype only had a limited range. Seto—or at least his Disk—had to be close by.

Only Mokuba saw nothing, no sign of his brother, just more snow and rock. The Blue-Eyes butted his hip, making a rattling hiss louder than the wind. Then it began to dig in the snow at their feet, its heavy talons casting a spray of powder into the air.

Mokuba stared at the dragon, then dropped to his knees to dig next to it, scooping away the fake snow with both hands.

The SV projections beneath the snow should have been solid synthetic stone, both for insulation and safety. But half a meter under the snow here, Mokuba found a smooth surface, not generated rock but a dome of a faintly translucent material—an SV barrier not programmed with any exterior tileset. 

Judging by how the barrier reflected the artificial moonlight, it was about thirty centimeters thick. Easily sturdy enough to support the weight of multiple adults, let alone Mokuba; but it appeared to be hollow underneath, not the expected stone. Mokuba knocked his knuckles against the barrier. The impact through his glove made only a dull thump that failed to resonate. Anti-vibration—sound-proofed, then. If Seto was inside this barrier, he wouldn't be able to hear anything above it.

Mokuba tried stomping on the dome with his boot. It didn't even echo, much less move. But there had to be a way to break through it. He adjusted his backpack, mentally listing its contents. A pickaxe was not among them. Not that one would help much; this barrier could withstand a jackhammer.

If the SV system were functioning properly, Mokuba could simply open it with a radio signal. But nothing in the sabotaged arena was taking external commands.

The simulation appeared to be running as usual otherwise, however. While certain protocols had been disabled, the programming itself hadn't been altered. The SV system's core code should still be in effect.

Which meant he didn't need a jackhammer; he had something better.

The little Blue-Eyes White Dragon was still scratching at the snow to clear off the dome, clawing at its impenetrable surface. When Mokuba touched the dragon's shoulder, it immediately stopped, rocking back on its haunches. It fixed its namesake eyes on Mokuba, cocking its head like an eager dog—or maybe that meant something different for dragons? Mokuba hoped he wasn't misreading it.

Technically, this shouldn't work anyway; he wasn't holding the Duel Monster's card. But technically the Blue-Eyes shouldn't be here at all, without an active duel.

Mokuba stood up, drawing his back straight and squaring his shoulders, as well as he could with how hard he was shivering. A puffy down parka wasn't anywhere near as dramatic as a trenchcoat, and he was missing about forty centimeters of height to really do this right, but he gave it his best shot.

The dragon shifted its wings, tail lashing the snow, still watching him intently. Pulling his scarf down from his mouth, Mokuba pointed one shaky but imperious finger down at the dome, and commanded, "Blue-Eyes! _Horobi no Burst Stream!"_

For a moment, the dragon didn't move—of course it didn't; it wasn't programmed to obey anyone who didn't have its card properly set in their Duel Disk—

Then the Blue-Eyes reared back, spreading its wings to lift itself into the air as it opened its jaws. A brilliant point of white light, brighter than the artificial moon above, formed between its fangs and released a blinding beam toward the dome.

For such a small Blue-Eyes, it was an impressive attack, if nowhere near Burst Stream's usual capacity. But the size didn't matter; the Blue-Eyes' ultimate dominance was ensured in the core programming, from when the SV system was no more than circuit diagrams and a few hundred lines of code. Kaiba Seto wouldn't have it any other way.

Under that devastating beam, the SV barrier instantly gave way. It dissolved into blocky pixels rather than shattering or another more impressive effect; it hadn't been coded with a destruction animation.

The local repulsor field, likewise unprogrammed, simply destabilized and collapsed, rather than cracking open at the point of the attack. Mokuba realized this consequence one second too late. Before he could take a step, the solid dome under his feet vanished, and he was falling.

White wings flashed as the Blue-Eyes dove for him like a hunting hawk. It grabbed onto his coat with front and back talons, but its flapping wings weren't broad enough to slow his descent. Instead, serpent-quick, it curled its hard-scaled body around Mokuba.

They hit the ground a second later. The Blue-Eyes took the full force of the fall. It shrieked and exploded into fragments, like any defeated Duel Monster being eliminated from the playing field. The transition from solid state to photonic emissions briefly generated a weak repulsor field, which caught Mokuba and slowed the last of his descent. He hit the ground no harder than if he'd fallen out of a chair.

Mokuba got up, rubbing his tailbone. It was sore, but probably wouldn't bruise. He looked up. Snow drifted slowly down from the gap in the SV barrier, some eight  
meters over his head. He definitely should be more than just sore.

No sign remained of the little dragon. Though it was a card, and so could be restored like any card after a duel was over, Mokuba still felt a tug of loss. "Thanks," he muttered to the cold air, exhaling a plume of white mist. His voice sounded loud in his ears; the air was still here, and the wind howling over the gap above was muted by distance and the surrounding sound-proof barriers. When he stopped moving the silence was deafening.

Even without the wind, it was as freezing below the dome as above it. Cold, and dark; the shadows below the barrier were barely touched by the dim artificial moonlight falling through the gap high above. All he could see in the darkness was an occasional faint twinkle.

Mokuba fumbled off his backpack to take out the flashlight, switched it on. Then he gasped.

Unlike the outside of the dome, this interior space was textured. The floors and walls were patterned as translucent ice crystal, forming a cavern of fractal constructs as pure and unflawed as cut diamond. The facets caught and reflected the flashlight's beam, scattering it into showers of scintillating glitter, brilliant and breathtakingly beautiful.

Though Mokuba hadn't seen this place in any of the arena's environment designs, he recognized his brother's work. Maybe it was a personal project of his, or else something Seto simply hadn't deemed ready for a public release. It was a work in progress, at any rate, judging by the patches of the ice walls that were unfinished matte-gray polygons. And with Seto's ego, he was loathe to share any of his artistic creations, even with Mokuba, until they were up to his exacting standards.

It did explain why it has been so difficult to verify his brother's location during the system crash. Mokuba shook his head, sighed, "Nii-sama, we have safety protocols for designers for a reason..."

Not that any safety protocols were in effect now. This cavern hadn't endured the crash intact. The floor was piled with ice crystals broken off from the walls and ceiling, shattered like glass. One toppled pillar was half a meter wide, solid artificial ice fashioned in rounded striations to look like an icicle dripping down to meet the floor. It had cracked into three massive pieces when it fell, each taller than Mokuba.

Between these huge crystal chunks, his flashlight's beam flickered over a different surface, not the blues of the simulated ice, but vivid orange. Mokuba's breath caught in his throat. He dashed forward, almost tripping as he skirted the broken pillar—the floor looked like ice but had the tactile grip of rubber; but his freezing feet in his boots were as numb as wooden blocks and no more nimble.

The orange was arranged in several eye-catching vertical stripes, on a block that was obviously not part of the ice cavern's design. It was two meters long and half that width and breadth, set on the floor at a haphazard angle, as if it had just been tossed there between the piles of shattered ice. When Mokuba pressed his hands to it, he felt the same smooth, static-fuzzed surface as the dome: another SV barrier.

The block's surface was only semi-transparent, partially obscured by the repulsor field's charge. But through the wavy distortions Mokuba could make out a dark blue coat, and white flaring underneath. And when he shone his flashlight into the barrier, the light illuminated Kaiba Seto's sharp features.

He lay on his back, motionless, eyes closed and hands folded over his chest. His knees were slightly bent to fit into the thick-walled box, but otherwise he looked like a body lying in state, preserved in an orange-striped coffin of artificially generated glass.

"Nii-sama!" Mokuba cried. His voice echoed once off the silent crystal before it was swallowed by the cold. He hammered his fists on the smooth barrier, but there was hardly even a thud; the block didn't shift.

Mokuba leaned over the block, changing the flashlight's angle to try to better see his brother's face behind the barrier. He couldn't tell if Seto were breathing. Maybe he was only asleep, like some cursed fairytale prince—princes got cursed sometimes, too, didn't they? He had to be asleep—or else unconscious, if he'd been injured by the pillar's collapse.

He had to be that, and not—not—"Nii-sama," Mokuba said, "come on, wake up! Tell me how to get you out of there!" He hit the block again, kicked it, swung the backpack at it, all to no avail. The SV barrier didn't waver, and there was no impossible dragon to break through it this time. And Seto, imprisoned inside, didn't move.

Mokuba felt a prickling in his eyes. Angrily he scrubbed his parka's sleeve over them—wet cheeks would just make him even colder, and he didn't have time to cry anyway; he needed to get his brother out of this. He had to think—though it was getting hard to think about anything except how cold he was, and how his brother must be just as cold in this block—or colder, if it was like ice—though Seto wasn't shivering, and shouldn't he be shivering, if he were...

Though Mokuba wasn't shivering as much himself anymore, not constantly now but in erratic waves that made his breath catch. That was definitely a symptom of hypothermia, but he couldn't recall which stage. It didn't matter anyway; he didn't have time to be hypothermic. Not until he figured this out.

He looked at the orange stripes virtually painted across the blocky barrier. It might otherwise look like a coffin, but that color wasn't very funerary. More like construction signage—or emergency signals? They definitely made the block more visible, easier to locate. If that was their purpose, then maybe this wasn't meant to be a prison at all...

Mokuba got up—he must have tripped, because the cold floor was freezing his butt, though he didn't remember sitting down. He set the flashlight on top of the block, approximately over Seto's chest, and felt along the flat sides, following the orange stripes.

His hands were as numb as his feet, even in the gloves, so he had to rely on vision more than touch, squinting through the flashlight's glow bouncing off the ice, frost dragging at his lashes. He passed his right hand over the spot without noticing, but one finger of his left-hand glove snagged on an edge.

Mokuba grabbed the flashlight and shone it at the barrier. There was a gap in the block's smooth surface—no, a slot, neat and rectangular, as if to fit a card.

Mokuba fumbled for his parka's pocket, managed to extract his KaibaCorp employee keycard and stuck it in the slot. But it fit loosely, the slot a little wider than it should be, and nothing happened.

Mokuba sat down again, hard, staring at the slot in desperation. If his keycard didn't work, then maybe he could jimmy it, pick the lock—if his fingers weren't too frozen for that kind of delicate task. Or else he could try a different card? If this were his brother's creation, then maybe it needed a Duel Monster card; but Mokuba didn't have a deck on him, and shouldn't Seto have thought of that? Not everyone kept their cards so close to them at all times—

"—Oh," Mokuba said, aloud to the silent cavern. "Right, of course, I'm an idiot, Nii-sama." He reached up to his parka's collar, struggling to make his numb fingers work the zipper. Finally he ripped off his glove to yank it down, enough to reach the card locket hanging around his neck. The string snapped with one sharp tug, and he jammed the locket into the slot.

It fit perfectly, but there was no click of a lock engaging or a diode blinking on; no change at all, and Mokuba said another word he shouldn't know, and put his head down in his arms, wrapped over his knees. 

He needed to get up, get out of here, find help for Seto, before it was too late; but he was so tired it was difficult to remember how to move, and so stiff with cold he wasn't sure he could anyway; he might as well be trapped in another block. The breath reflected back into his face didn't feel any warmer than the air around him, the bitter chill stabbing into his lungs. Though freezing to death was supposed to be peaceful, wasn't it? So pain was probably a good sign. Even though peaceful and painless sounded like a better deal to him right now.

But no, Mokuba couldn't freeze to death; his brother would kill him for that—or more likely kill someone else, like the one who had designed this freezing cavern, and that—that would be bad. Mokuba took a deep breath like inhaling a handful of needles, shakily pushed himself to his feet. Watching his boots to make sure they stayed under him like they were supposed to, he reached to the block for balance—

His extended hand missed, falling through empty space. Before he could trip, something grabbed his arm, a firm, even grip bearing him up, as a firm, even voice asked, "Mokuba?"

Mokuba gave a start, or maybe a shiver, and dragged up his head. "Nii-sama?"

The block was gone like the dome and the dragon, no trace remaining. Instead the elongated beam of the flashlight on the floor showed his brother, kneeling on the false ice in front of him to peer into Mokuba's face.

"What happened?" Seto demanded. "The cavern almost collapsed on me; that's more than a glitch, and my failsafe didn't work."

"Nii-sama? You—you're all right!" Mokuba cried, and threw himself forward into his brother's embrace.

Seto caught him readily, hugging him back without hesitation, though there was some confusion, and, being Seto, anger, in his voice, as he said, "Mokuba, what's wrong? Why is the simulation still running? And why is it so damn cold?"

Seto's arms were warm and strong and most importantly _alive_ , so there was no reason for the lump that welled up in Mokuba's throat. He swallowed it back, strove to order his thoughts and stop his teeth chattering enough to answer his brother's questions. "Sabotage," he said. "I'm p-pretty sure—someone hacked our system. They crashed the network, rebooted it with a firewall around the controls; I couldn't access any of them. We had to cut through the door with a blowtorch to get inside."

Seto checked his watch. "That crash was over two hours ago," he said. "Why didn't you just cut the external power to the arena?"

"Because I didn't know where you were in it," Mokuba said. "If the simulation had stopped when you were twenty meters above the floor..."

"Only twelve here...but I take your point," Seto said, glancing down at the artificially projected ice under their feet. "So you came in to find me—but why'd it take you so long to get here?"

"I tried—I tried to get to you as fast as I could," Mokuba gasped, "but it took me way too long to realize the EPT protocols were still running. I got lost in the mountain simulation. I didn't know you were down here, I didn't know about here—I'm sorry, Nii-sama, I should've figured it out sooner, I—"

"Mokuba. Mokuba!" Seto grabbed his arms, tight enough to hold him still. "How long have you been in here? It feels colder than the safeties should allow—"

"The safeties were all deactivated," Mokuba said. "Including the thermostat; the temperature's been dropping steadily. I set a worm on the firewall, and once it's through it'll start a full system reset, but it'll take hours to get everything working again. That's why I had to come in and find you, so—oh! I should've remembered—" He broke away from his brother to tussle with the backpack, finally got it off his shoulders and pushed it at Seto. "I brought you a coat, other stuff—there's tea, and better gloves, and—"

Seto opened the backpack, pulled out the thermal-lined coat but didn't take the time to put it on, instead kept rummaging through the bag until he found the thermos. He unscrewed the cover, deftly with his thin white-leather gloves. Steam rose from the open mouth as he pushed the thermos at Mokuba, instructed, "Drink."

"B-but—" Mokuba gritted his chattering teeth, "it's for you, Nii-sama—"

"I'm fine," Seto said, "and you're too cold. Do you need help holding it?"

"No, I c-can do it," Mokuba said, though with the gloves and his numb fingers it took him a couple tries to get a grip on the slick stainless steel. He was shivering again, hard enough that the thermos's lip rattled against his teeth when he brought it to his mouth.

The lemon tea almost burned his tongue, too hot to taste, though it should be sweet with honey. Mokuba coughed on the first sip, took it away gasping, "Too hot—"

Seto had put on the coat over his trenchcoat and was exchanging his gloves for the insulated pair Mokuba had brought. He took the thermos, tasted it and said, his voice hardening with what might have been anger, "It's barely lukewarm."

"S-sorry, Nii-sama, I'll—"

Seto's eyes widened slightly, their blue as sharply bright as his dragon's, even in the flashlight's angled shadows. "Please, Mokuba," and his voice dropped to so quiet it was nearly toneless, "just drink the tea. You need to warm up as much as possible; you're hypothermic."

"Oh," Mokuba said. "Right. B-but you've been in here longer—"

"I was protected from the cold," Seto said.

"B-by that block? What was th-that?"

"Drink the tea and I'll tell you," Seto said, so Mokuba did. He sipped the tea as Seto took the flashlight and prowled the cavern, stepping over the broken ice with long-legged ease. Then he circled back to Mokuba, crouched before him to take the thermos and asked, "How are you feeling?"

"B-better," Mokuba said, though he wasn't sure if that was actually true. He'd managed to drink half the thermos, but the tea sat in his stomach like it had frozen into a solid mass on the way down his throat, and he was shivering again, harder than before. But he felt more awake, at least, able to think, and remember how to move.

Seto gave him a long, studying look, then without a word took back the thermos, screwed the cover back on and returned it to the backpack. Then he adjusted Mokuba's scarf, pulling it back up over his nose, and drew Mokuba's hood tight around his face. "I assume you tried radioing for assistance, when you found me," he said, as his quick fingers tied the hood in place. "Could you get a signal through?"

"I don't know," Mokuba said. "There isn't any assistance to try calling."

"You came into the simulator alone?"

Mokuba looked down, shivering. "I'm sorry, Nii-sama..."

Seto just shook his head. He set a hand on Mokuba's shoulder, only for a moment, then slung the backpack's straps over his shoulders and stood. "We have to get out of here—find a way back to the entrance," he said. "Unfortunately, the most direct route doesn't appear to be an option," and he glanced up at the cavern's ceiling. The gap where the dome had broken showed a circle of stars, eight meters up, and the cavern walls were slick as artificial ice could be. "This cavern is connected to a network of tunnels; the fastest route to the external landscape should be this way. Come on."

He started walking, and Mokuba followed. He could barely feel his cheeks, even with the scarf over them, but he knew that he was smiling. His brother knew what to do. A simulator was sort of like a game, after all—and Seto always won whatever game he played.

(Almost always.)

The cavern's icy walls narrowed into a tunnel, the crystal arching overhead refracting the flashlight's beam into sapphire glittering. "What is this place, Nii-sama?" Mokuba asked as they walked. His voice echoed off the generated ice, over the crunch of their footsteps. "It wasn't on the plans—you designed it?"

"A special stage," Seto said. "It's unfinished. Probably won't be ready in time for the opening."

"Like a bonus level?"

"Something like that." They reached a fork in the tunnel, and Seto stopped, frowning at the two passages before them. "The left should be a shorter route, but it's incomplete."

Mokuba had his arms crossed over his chest, though it didn't stop his teeth from clacking together. "Shorter sounds g-good to me."

Seto nodded and started down that tunnel. His strides were long as ever, and Mokuba struggled to keep up. It was too hard to lift his block-feet to jog, so he just moved his legs as fast as he could. Moving would help warm him up, too.

"Even if you came in alone, why don't you have someone waiting on the outside?" Seto asked over his shoulder. "To cut the power, once you'd found me."

"Couldn't," Mokuba said. "There wasn't anyone I could ask."

Seto stopped again, though the tunnel didn't fork here. Mokuba stumbled to a halt beside him, as Seto said, "No one? There's a staff of fifty on site!"

"The hacking was an inside job," Mokuba said. Standing still, he was even colder, but he was too tired to move without the pull of forward momentum. "Had to be; they knew the system too well. And I wasn't completely sure who'd done it, or who they might be working with. If I g-guessed wrong...c-couldn't risk giving them another chance to go after you."

"Me? It's more likely the system was the target, not me," Seto said. "A fatal accident would shut this park down—this arena, at least. It wouldn't matter who died."

Mokuba shook his head. "You were the only one in the simulation arena now, Nii-sama. The only time in the last week that you were alone in here."

Seto didn't respond, just started walking again, his strides longer than ever with the fury channeled into them. Mokuba was heartened as he dropped back into step behind him. Now that his brother had an opponent, however unidentified, he definitely couldn't lose.

"Nii-sama," Mokuba asked, his voice resonating strangely off the ice, sounding shaky and breathless as he struggled to keep up. "How come you didn't get hurt? What happened to you, when the system crashed?"

"I didn't realize what had gone wrong," Seto said. "I thought it was a local malfunction, perhaps caused by an error in the cavern design. The crash destabilized the constructs; at least, I presume that's what caused the collapse. I couldn't see it clearly myself, however; I was in the initial stages of attempting a restore when I was trapped."

"In that coffin-block," Mokuba said.

"Coffin...? It's an experimental safety system," Seto said. "When the user has been injured, or is in immediate physical jeopardy, it surrounds them in a reinforced, insulated SV field, shielding them from further damage. The field is supposed to be automatically cancelled once the danger has passed, but it must have registered the system override as a possible threat, or else it glitched. I couldn't get it to disengage, once it initiated; my com-pad was non-functional, and it wouldn't respond to verbal commands. And since I couldn't do anything and could barely move inside it, I opted to conserve my strength and rest."

It was probably the most uninterrupted sleep Seto had gotten in several days, Mokuba thought, familiar with his brother's schedule at this stage in a project. Maybe he should make a copy of this early glitched version of the code... "It sounds like the system needs some adjustment, if you were so cramped inside it."

"It's still in its early stages," Seto said, "and I designed the prototype around a smaller model subject."

"Makes sense, since the majority of the KaibaLand patrons are kids," Mokuba said.

"Right, the patrons," Seto agreed.

Mokuba sighed. He was walking with his head down; he had to watch where he placed his boots, or else he would trip over his numb feet. "So you were safe all along." He should have known his brother would be all right, with or without his help. "Until I took you out of it—I'm sorry, Nii-sama, I should've just worked on the system on the outside, instead of putting you through this—"

"I wouldn't have been all right for much longer," Seto said. His voice was nearer than before; he must have slowed his pace to let Mokuba catch up. "The field was insulated, but I hadn't added thermo-regulation yet; I was starting to feel the chill inside it, and in another hour it would've been well below freezing. If you hadn't released me from it, my supposed shelter might have proved as potentially lethal as the simulator itself."

"...Oh," Mokuba said.

"Thank you," Seto said abruptly, so curt that Mokuba wasn't sure that he had heard right. "For coming to get me out."

"Oh," Mokuba said again. "But we're not out yet—"

"We will be," Seto said, even more shortly. He grabbed Mokuba's shoulder, pulling him to a stop. "Careful of your footing here," he warned. "Watch where I step."

They'd reached the unfinished section. The floor here was rougher, difficult to navigate. Some of it wasn't textured, not slippery like ice, but the smooth SV fields didn't offer much better purchase. Seto led the way, shortening his steps to allow for Mokuba's much shorter stride. Mokuba carefully shadowed each footstep, arms spread to keep his balance.

The surrounding walls were blocky, not the elaborate ice crystal constructs but more basic shapes in opaque colors, a three-dimensional sketch of the planned design. Some of them weren't solid at all, but only visual markers. Seto tracked the location of these with his unerring memory, striding through the seeming walls. Mokuba kept close behind him, following his brother through the insubstantial holograms, the charged particles fizzing against his skin like soda pop.

Walking as fast as he could, he didn't realize Seto had stopped until his brother put a hand to his chest, pushing him back before he had swung more than his boot through the next holographic image. "Careful," Seto cautioned. "The floor past this one hasn't been finished yet, either."

"Oh," Mokuba said, trying to catch his breath. Even through the scarf, every inhalation was frost-touched, aching in his lungs. 

Seto had crossed his arms, staring down at the false matte-blue wall. Ahead of them, the tunnel curved around, becoming more detailed again; but when Mokuba suggested continuing, Seto stayed glowering at the wall, his face set in thought.

"Maybe we ought to leave the front-end environment," he said. "Under the SV constructs, we can head directly to a ground-level emergency exit."

Mokuba thought about putting his hands in his pockets, but it wasn't worth the effort, when there was no warmth left there anyway. "How far above ground level are we now, Nii-sama?"

Seto narrowed his eyes in concentration, reviewing his mental blueprints. "Approximately ten meters."

"That's a long way to fall," Mokuba said. "Isn't staying on the created paths easier?"

Seto shook his head, still studying the wall. "All the passages of this section wind around; they're designed to accommodate a significant crowd." His eyes moved to Mokuba briefly, then back to the wall. "We need to get out of here faster. We've already been in here too long."

Mokuba couldn't argue with that. He was becoming too tired to argue with anything, really. "So how do we get down to the floor?"

Seto took off the backpack, went through what was left in it. "How did you get down into the ice cave?" he asked. "You couldn't have climbed those walls, so did you have a rope, or...?"

"I didn't bring a rope," Mokuba said. "I should've thought of that, why didn't I...sorry, Nii-sama, next time I'll remember..."

He thought he was paying attention, but it was more difficult to keep track of things without the steady pattern of walking. He didn't realize he'd zoned out until suddenly his brother's face was right in front of him, Seto crouching to be at his eye-level, his ice-blue gaze boring into Mokuba's. His hands were on Mokuba's shoulders, giving him a shake that made his teeth rattle—or maybe that was just how they were chattering already.

"Mokuba, focus," Seto said, short and sharp as his gratitude. "How did you get down, without a rope?"

"I had help," Mokuba said, and then blinked with a surge of astonishment at his own stupidity. How had he not thought of that sooner—"Nii-sama, your cards—you have your Duel Disk?"

"Yes, but it's not set up to interface with the arena simulator yet," Seto said.

"It was working before," Mokuba said. "I saw a Blue-Eyes." He didn't specify the dragon's size, but did say, "It led me to you, down into the cave."

Seto frowned. "Impossible. I don't have any cards in play in the Disk."

"Try it?" Mokuba suggested.

His brother kept frowning at him, but he unzipped his parka enough to get out the portable Disk and his deck. Though he was shivering from the cold as well, his hands were perfectly steady, as he drew three cards from the deck without looking and set them in the Disk.

Two dog-sized Blue-Eyes White Dragons materialized before them, long tails thrashing the icy floor. Seto frowned down at the pair. "Where's the third?"

"I—I think that's my fault, Nii-sama; it was protecting me..."

His brother nodded. "Good. It's probably for the best anyway; the Disk is running on reserve power, if the projections are this small. It must be overriding the local system defaults...or else those were reset with the crash..." Seto gave his head a shake, a vexed twitch as he refocused on the dragons. "But if they're this small, they won't be able to carry both of us down together." 

He considered for only a brief moment, before taking the Duel Disk and handing it to Mokuba. "They'll fly you down," he said, "and then you can toss the Disk back up to me."

Mokuba shook his head, not taking the Disk. "You can keep it, Nii-sama; the range should be far enough for me to reach the floor from here—"

"—And if I've miscalculated the height, then your support vanishes in a wingbeat," Seto snapped. "Take the Disk."

It had been a long time since Mokuba had heard that tone from his brother, at least directed at him—impatient, demanding, and cold as the ice around them. He flinched before he could help himself, then hoped it could be mistaken for a shiver. Swallowing, he wrapped his numb fingers around the Duel Disk and said, "All right, Nii-sama."

Seto nodded, then straightened up, instinctively falling into a battle stance as he commanded his dragons, "Blue-Eyes, carry him."

Technically Mokuba should have given that order, since he was the one holding the Disk; but the Duel Monsters didn't hesitate to obey their only master. They spread their wings to lift themselves into the air, and each took hold of one of Mokuba's shoulders in their talons, beating their wings furiously to bear him up.

Seto nodded. He put the flashlight into Mokuba's other hand, then pointed to the blank blue wall. "Down there," he ordered, and the dragons obediently flew to the wall, into it—then through it.

Past the wall it was pitch black. The unprogrammed SV projections didn't reflect the flashlight's beam, their featureless surface absorbing most ambient light before it could be scattered. Against that darkness, the Blue-Eyes' white scales almost glowed.

With his shoulders clutched in the dragons' talons, it was difficult for Mokuba to see below them to gauge their rate of descent. The Blue-Eyes flapped their wings laboriously, but by the whipping wind and the dip of his stomach, they were dropping fast.

He craned his neck, trying to point the flashlight below, only to have it slip out of his hands. But it clattered to a hard surface only a meter below, giving Mokuba just enough time to ready himself before his boots hit the floor. He rolled at the impact like he was skydiving, then pushed back up to his knees. The dragons were still clutching his shoulders, growling anxiously, their tails lashing his back.

"Mokuba!" his brother shouted somewhere above him.

"I'm here," Mokuba shouted back. "We made it to the floor!" His voice echoed faintly back to him, through the cavernous darkness beneath the SV environment.

He picked up the flashlight and stood, carefully. The two Blue-Eyes settled at his feet, nuzzling their armored heads against his hips to steady him. The floor was coated with a layer of ice—not generated imagery but genuine frozen water, the runoff from the snow machine melted and now refrozen, a couple centimeters thick over the concrete floor. Its slick surface glimmered in the flashlight's pale beam.

Mokuba tilted up the light, playing it over the featureless black surface overhead until it caught on the little pallid oval of his brother's face. Seto, leaning out through the false wall, put up a hand to shade his eyes from the glare. "Are you all right?" he called down.

"Yeah," Mokuba said. "Your turn," and he gestured to the Blue-Eyes, pointing up towards Seto. "Go get him now!"

The dragons obediently launched themselves up, but less than five meters overheard, not even halfway there, their seemingly solid forms wavered, wings fading to translucent as they reached the limit of the projector's range. Keening in distress, they circled back down to Mokuba.

"It's out of range," Mokuba called up, though his brother could've seen it for himself. "I'll have to throw the Disk up to you..." Mokuba hefted the Duel Disk. While more portable than the standard model, it was still substantial.

He gave it an experimental toss. To his dismay, it spun awkwardly in the air, tilting to the left and barely clearing twice his height. Mokuba had to lunge to catch it, clumsily, before it hit the ice. He clutched it to him, shivering. "Nii-sama, I don't think I can throw the Duel Disk that high up to you—and if I miss, and it falls and breaks...what if I give it to the Blue-Eyes to carry up to you? Then it can keep them solid as they fly..."

"Impossible; they can't carry their own projector." Seto's face was too far away for Mokuba to read his expression, but his voice was flat and even. "If that's the case, you'll have to head to the exit without me."

"No," Mokuba said.

"Be reasonable. When you're out of the arena, you can—"

"Pull the plug, so you can fall ten meters? Then why not jump right now?" Mokuba said.

"I was going to say, send in people to get me."

"And what if one of them is actually someone trying to kill you?" On either side of Mokluba, the dragons hissed.

"I can take care of myself," Seto said, absolutely confident as ever he was, in a game or in the boardroom. Then his voice dropped, softer, though carrying through the still darkness. "Mokuba, you're cold and tired; you're not thinking clearly. The important thing now is getting you out of this freezing environment. Once you've warmed up and the safeties have been restored, you can come back for—"

"No." Mokuba sat down on the icy floor between the two Blue-Eyes, crossing his arms. It didn't help his shivering, but it made a visual point, at least. "You're cold, too, so maybe _you're_ not thinking clearly, Nii-sama. I came in here to rescue you, and I'm not leaving without you."

His brother was silent for several heartbeats, the pale shape of his face like a ghostly moon against the surrounding black. Expressionless, at least from the distance between them. Then Seto said, sharp and mocking, "You'd call this a rescue? What have you done, other than to force me from protection, into this damned freezer? As usual you're nothing but useless deadweight, trying to drag me down."

If he'd stopped before than final line, it might have worked; but that final strike was too precise, too deliberate. And Seto's tone was all wrong as he said it, not callously disdainful but strained. Even Mokuba's frozen ears could hear that much. "Nii-sama," he sighed, shaking his head, "I'm not nine anymore; I'm not going to go away just because you say mean things to me."

Seto made a sound more than a little like his dragons' growls, echoed by the Blue-Eyes. Though as they nudged Mokuba with their muzzles, that vibration sounded more like purring.

"Mokuba, _please_ ," Seto said above him. Mokuba could hear the click of his teeth chattering before he clamped them together. "You have to get out of here."

"Yeah—with you," Mokuba said. He glared down at the Duel Disk in his hand. If he were taller, stronger..."I can try to throw it again—I'm sorry, Nii-sama, I should be able to get it up to you—"

"This Disk wasn't designed for aerodynamics," Seto said. "I couldn't throw it that height myself; it's not your fault."

Mokuba was cold, but not _that_ cold. He stared up at his brother, shouted into the darkness between them, "If you didn't think I could get the Disk back to you, why'd you let me come down alone?"

"The Blue-Eyes at this size obviously couldn't have supported both of us," Seto said impatiently. "It hardly matters now—"

"What was your plan? To just freeze in here, while I got out without you?"

"Under the circumstances—"

" _Under the circumstances_ it's a terrible plan, Nii-sama—think of a better one! If the dragons can't fly all the way up to you, and I can't throw the Disk all the way up to you, then..."

He trailed off with a sudden thought, just as he saw Seto's head tilt, and even so far away, Mokuba could recognize the gleam of inspiration striking. "If I throw the Disk as high as I can—" Mokuba gasped out.

"—with the Blue-Eyes already in flight—" and the pair of dragons arched their necks, mantling their wings in eagerness.

"—and they fly up along with the Disk—"

"—then the combined height might be enough." Seto's eyes narrowed, gauging the distance between them. "The timing will be difficult."

"The Blue-Eyes are fast," Mokuba said, as the dragons butted their heads insistently against his shoulders, "but if I can't throw it high enough..."

"You can," Seto said, not reassuringly but matter-of-fact. "Though if I miscalculate—"

"You won't," Mokuba said. With a plan this tenuous, it was good to have at least one certain factor.

"Then let's do this," Seto said, and though the Duel Disk was still in Mokuba's hands, the Blue-Eyes immediately took flight.

Mokuba stiffly got to his feet, his eyes following the dragons as they soared up into the darkness. Their white scales shone against the black void of the unmasked SV projections. They stopped at the very edge of their range, their wingtips fading into translucence as they beat them up and down, hovering in place.

"Ready!" Mokuba called. Shifting the Duel Disk to his right hand, he flung it upwards. He knew he released it too soon the moment it left his fingertips, started running forward even as the dragons shot up, matching the arc of their flight to the Disk's trajectory.

But they were still meters short of where Seto leaned out into the dark when the Disk started to fall again. The dragons shrieked in frustration. One of them dropped, following the Disk; the other strove to fly higher, only to blink out of existence. It rematerialized meters lower, hovering right above the devices projectors, as Mokuba lunged to catch the Disk. 

"Mokuba!" Seto shouted from above.

"It's all right, Nii-sama, I got it," Mokuba panted, waving the intact Disk at him. "I didn't throw it right; I'll do better this time." He drew back his arm again, as the dragons once more circled upwards. "Ready!" he shouted up again, and the Blue-Eyes answered with high-pitched roars, beating their wings.

Mokuba threw the Disk again, as hard as he could. As it hurtled up into the air, the dragons soared higher, exactly timed with the Disk. Mokuba held his breath as he watched the Disk spin up into the darkness, and beyond it the dragons climbed—higher and higher—but not high enough; Seto was still far above them—

And then he wasn't. As the Blue-Eyes flew upwards, Seto jumped from the level above, throwing himself out into the black void, arms spread and the long tails of his coat under the parka catching the air like his own pair of wings.

The dragons roared, folding their wings to match his descent and grasp at his coat with their talons. Mokuba, his heart in his freezing throat, saw the dragons twist mid-air as they caught him, beating their wings furiously to slow their descent, while still staying within range of the Duel Disk falling below.

But they were still at the maximum height of its range, over five meters off the ground, and the Disk—Mokuba charged again to catch it, only for his feet to slide out from under him. He fell, bruising his elbows and knocking his chin on the icy floor.

A second later, so did the Disk, dashed against the ice. Above it, the Blue-Eyes screamed in fury and then winked out of existence like a pair of blown-out candles.

And Seto, clutched in their talons, dropped three meters to the floor, hitting in the darkness beyond the flashlight's beam, with a thud and the crack of breaking ice.

"Nii-sama!" Mokuba pushed himself upright, his head spinning. There was a coppery taste in his mouth; he'd bit his tongue when he tripped.

The flashlight had fallen out of his pocket and rolled, splashing its long beam diagonally across the glittering ice. Not taking the time to retrieve it, Mokuba made his way to the dark huddled shadow of his brother, slipping and sliding with each step. "Nii-sama, Nii-sama, are you—"

"—Fine," Seto said, catching his breath, his voice harsh and tight through the darkness. "I'm fine." He was sitting up on the ice, not yet on his feet, but he grabbed Mokuba's arm when he would have tripped again, steadying him. "Are you all right? You fell hard—"

"You fell harder!" Mokuba protested.

"I had time to ready myself," Seto said dismissively. "And now I'm down here, at least."

"But—you could have—if you'd been any higher—"

"Mokuba." Seto's fingers curled around his shoulder, tight enough for Mokuba to feel the grip through the parka and the cold. "I'm all right. Now we have to get to that exit." Still gripping Mokuba's shoulder, he pushed himself to his feet—

Then staggered and nearly fell, and Mokuba grabbed his arm to brace his brother. "Nii-sama!"

Seto leaned on him, gritted his teeth and repeated, "I'm _fine_ —just twisted my ankle, it seems." He shifted his weight off Mokuba as he carefully set his left boot down on the floor. He hissed like one of his Blue-Eyes as he took a step forward, but managed to stay upright.

Though with his next step, his boot skidded on the ice, and Mokuba lunged to get under his brother's arm in time to prop him up. Seto leaned on him, more heavily than before and gasping for enough breath to curse.

"Just twisted?" Mokuba asked.

"Possible sprained," Seto grated through clenched teeth.

When he caught his breath, Mokuba wrapped his arms around his brother's waist to hold him in place, keeping him from pulling away. With a brief hissed sigh, Seto conceded to use him as a crutch. He rested one hand gingerly on Mokuba's shoulder and together they limped over to retrieve the fallen flashlight.

"Which way?" Mokuba asked. He'd lost track of their orientation when Seto fell, but his brother's sense of direction had been trained to perfection.

Though Seto took a moment, squinting up into the darkness overhead in a vain search for their entrance. At last he gave his head an irritated shake, pointing off to their right. "There."

It was slow going, and difficult to judge their progress, with nothing around them but the black void and the flashlight glinting dully off the ice ahead. After a few limping steps, Seto, grimly grasping Mokuba's shoulder, muttered, "That's it, I'm cancelling Isono's vacation days. For the next five years."

"What did Isono do?" Mokuba said. "He isn't even here."

"Exactly," Seto said. "If he had been, you would've trusted him to support you in locating me, would you not have?"

"Yeah, of course." Isono was probably the most loyal member of KaibaCorp; considering the number of difficult situations he'd stuck by them in, if he had a price it was higher than any of their enemies could afford. "But Nii-sama, you can't punish him for being our friend!"

"Employee," Seto sternly corrected. "Though our... _your_ so-called friends weren't any help, either."

"They're not even on this _continent_ right now," Mokuba protested. "Yuugi's America tour doesn't start until next month. Besides, would you want to be saved by them even if they were here?"

His brother, naturally, didn't answer, except with a noise that might have been a growl, or else a suppressed grunt of pain, as his injured foot came down on the ice.

Mokuba wanted to say something else, make some noise to distract his brother from that injury, and push back the frigid darkness. When they weren't talking there was only the shuffle of their footsteps, and the low omnipresent rumble of the refrigeration fans, driving the temperature lower. But he couldn't think of anything to say, when he had to concentrate so hard on walking; if he didn't focus, he'd forget to take the next step when his boot came down. And talking was difficult anyway, with his lips numb even under the scarf, and out of breath as he was.

At least the air didn't hurt so much to breathe now. He wasn't even that cold anymore, just tired. With every step his legs seemed heavier, as if his feet had frozen into iron weights. Or maybe it was so cold now that the air itself was freezing, turning solid around them, so they had to push through each stilled molecule, suspended in place by a force even stronger than the SV projectors that held all the cubic meters of fake ice and stone above them.

It occurred to Mokuba that they'd never actually tested the SV system under such extreme physical conditions. What if the electromagnetic matrices destabilized? The entire SV system might dissolve—or it might simply collapse, and drop however many tons of artificial mountain on their heads. He should really know the tonnage; it was in the stats they'd released in the publicity campaign...

"—Mokuba. Mokuba!"

Mokuba heard the sound, but didn't register it as his name until his brother caught his shoulder, gave him a shake. He blinked, shook his head as if he could physically get his brain back in gear. Realizing he was no longer walking, he mumbled, "Sorry, Nii-sama," as he struggled to lift his leg to take another step.

"Mokuba, stop," Seto said. "We're here," and he took the flashlight from Mokuba's hand, aimed its beam ahead of them. Instead of ice or blackness, it shone on steel, painted in broad orange stripes, set in the vast gray blankness of the poured concrete wall of the arena.

Mokuba stared at it, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. "Oh," he said. "That's...good."

Seto lifted his hand from Mokuba's shoulder and took the last limping steps himself, to seize the wheel over the emergency exit's steel hatch. Grasping the wheel in both hands and bracing on his good leg, he started to turn it, with the dull screech of labored metal.

But the emergency hatch only spun a quarter of the way around before it ground to a halt, and wouldn't budge any further even when Seto threw all his weight against it, snarling curses.

Mokuba knew he should do something to help, but couldn't figure out what. The emergency exits were supposed to be easy to manually open, but maybe this one had been improperly constructed. Or perhaps the hatch needed to be oiled; he could schedule a maintenance order, if he could get his phone out of his pocket, only he couldn't get the parka's zipper down—

"Mokuba," and suddenly his brother was right in front of him. A dazzling glare blinded his eyes and Mokuba threw out his arms, as if he could bat away the painful light itself. Seto lowered the flashlight, but the glare of his gaze was as intense, his blue eyes starkly vivid in his pale face. "Mokuba," Seto repeated, "we have to try another exit; this one's blocked. Deliberately, I'm sure. So you have to get up now—can you stand?"

"I am standing?" Mokuba said, confused, only when he looked he wasn't; he was sitting on the floor, though he didn't remember doing so. The ice didn't even feel cold under him. He tried to push off it to stand, but his hands in the gloves and his feet in the boots skidded in opposite directions, dumping him back on the ground. He lay there on his back for a moment, staring up at the blackness above. It wasn't entirely dark; there were twinkles in it, like stars or snowflakes, pretty little sparkles dancing through the void.

"Mokuba!" Seto said, sharp as a slap, and Mokuba flinched and rolled away from the pretty lights, struggling to sit up. He made it to his knees, and then his brother, crouched awkwardly with his weight on one leg, hooked a hand under his arm and pulled him upright.

For a moment Mokuba couldn't actually remember how to walk, just stood there swaying. Then his brother tugged on his arm, drawing him forward. "You need to move," he said, and Mokuba obediently swung his leg out, back into motion.

He managed two steps before everything went dark, like the flashlight had been switched off. With no point of reference, Mokuba couldn't tell if he was falling, or just dizzy, not until an arm under his back jerked him to a halt.

Seto's voice was in his ears, low and soft, not ordering but pleading. "Come on, Mokuba," he said, "put your arms around my neck—just like when we were little, when you were tired and I'd carry you home, remember?"

Which Mokuba did; he wrapped his arms around Seto's shoulders—they were broader than they used to be, especially in the layered coats, but Mokuba's arms were longer now, too, so it worked out. He held on as Seto pushed himself to his feet and started to walk, a jolting, uneven hobble. Mokuba opened his eyes, lifted his head. The flashlight was clipped to Seto's coat, its beam juddering up and down with each limping step he took.

"Nii-sama," Mokuba said through his rattling teeth, "you can put me down; I can walk—"

"Forget it; this is faster."

"But your leg—"

"It's all right," Seto said. "You're supposed to ice a sprain."

"I d-don't think this what doctors mean..." Mokuba yawned, dropped his head to rest on his brother's shoulder, only for Seto to shift sharply, jostling him.

"Mokuba!" Seto commanded. "Talk!"

Mokuba lifted his head with effort. "Talk..?"

"Keep talking to me," Seto. "Keep holding onto my back, and keep talking; can you do that for me?"

"Y-yes, Nii-sama," Mokuba said. "Um, talk about what?"

"Anything," Seto said. He was walking with one hand tucked back to hold Mokuba and his other hand braced against the wall. Mokuba could feel his shoulders move as he gasped for breath. "You just need to keep awake a little longer. That was Exit Three, so Five is only a little further."

"We should put in more," Mokuba said. "Since it's so big in here."

"Yes," Seto agreed.

"And make sure they're all working."

"That, they were," Seto said. "And the mechanism couldn't have jammed—it must have been sabotaged." Anger raised his voice, strengthened it. He started to walk faster, leaning forward into his uneven steps, and asked through gritted teeth, "So who is responsible for this?"

"I told you, I d-don't know," Mokuba said.

"You told me you weren't completely sure. So who do you suspect?"

Mokuba sighed. "Kitagawa Hiromasa."

His brother was quiet for couple of steps, considering Kitagawa: one of their lead programmers, a soft-spoken, competent, intelligent worker. Seto had personally chosen him for the arena project, promoting him above several other senior employees. "Why him?"

"He has the technical expertise," Mokuba said. "And his family's in debt—his father had some business failures. Also, I found out recently..." He hesitated, finally decided he needed to tell his brother. For Kitagawa's sake, if nothing else. "His brother-in-law died five years ago. He was in the Australian army, on the peacekeeping force sent to Latveria."

Seto was quiet again, but it was a different silence; Mokuba could feel the sudden stiff tension in his shoulders. The Latverian insurrection was one of the conflicts in which KaibaCorp's weapons had been sold to both sides. One of the last such battle zones, Mokuba could remind his brother, but didn't. Seto knew it already.

"So that's why it was me," Seto said finally. "Why he trapped me, so you had to come in here after me."

"If it was him...it might not be," Mokuba said. The fury in his brother's voice, level and colder still than the air around them, was too dangerous to leave to chance and intuition. "I'm probably wrong—"

"Unlikely," Seto said. "You know our people. But you should have told me this before."

"But he hadn't done anything," Mokuba said. His head was too heavy; he rested his chin on Seto's shoulder, shut his eyes. "And he needed this job; he has a family."

"Who else?" Seto asked.

"...Has a family?"

"Who else in our employ has similarly exploitable traits, other weak points?"

"Everyone has weak points, Nii-sama," Mokuba mumbled. "Don't you always say that? If you can find them, that's one way to win..."

"Or to lose, if your opponent finds them first," Seto said. Then he was saying, shouting it into Mokuba's ear, "Mokuba!"

"Huh—what, Nii-sama?"

"You were dozing off," Seto said, strained and breathless. "Don't—don't do that. Later, after we get out of here—but not now. No sleeping, that's the rule. Understand?"

"Y-yes," Mokuba said. "Sorry, Nii-sama."

"You have nothing to apologize for," Seto said, the fierce anger in his tone contradicting the words. It reminded Mokuba of the Blue-Eyes' low rattling growls, that almost could be purrs. "As long as you stay awake. We're almost there—see," and he angled the flashlight along the arena's gray wall, to reveal the next exit.

Seto staggered the last few steps, grabbed for the hatch wheel before he could trip on the ice. Lowering Mokuba to the floor, he took hold of the wheel in both hands and wrenched it down.

It turned, the metal groaning; but the door didn't swing open. Seto put both his palms to the steel and shoved, but it didn't budge, as immovable as the concrete wall around it. Frozen solid, still and silent, like everything else around them; peaceful, at least until it all came crashing down on them. Unless it already had, and that was why it was so still...

"No!" Seto's shout was loud enough to momentarily jerk Mokuba out of his daze. His brother threw his shoulder against the door, beat his fists against it. The flashlight clipped to his belt swung crazily, and in its flashing bands of light and dark Seto's face was gray as the concrete as he yelled, "Open now, damn you, or else—!"

"Nii-sama," Mokuba remarked sleepily, around a yawn, "we haven't hooked up the voice activation yet...I can do that later, if you want, as soon as I get up..."

"Mokuba," Seto said, not shouting anymore, but still forceful, "what did I tell you about falling asleep?"

It took Mokuba a moment to puzzle out that question. "...Don't? But I'm not, Nii-sama...just a little nap, that's all..."

" _No_ ," Seto said, suddenly closer. He was leaning over Mokuba, and then he overbalanced on his hurt ankle, falling heavily on the ice before Mokuba could catch him. Trembling arms braced on the floor, Seto drew a couple short harsh breaths before he sat up. With his injured leg stretched out straight and his other leg tucked under himself, he reached for Mokuba, snagged his parka by the sleeve and dragged him across the ice, into his lap.

He unzipped his overcoat, pulled Mokuba against his chest and wrapped the coat back around both of them, as far as it would go. Then he folded both arms around him and tucked Mokuba's hood in the crook of his neck. When Seto spoke, Mokuba could feel his chin bumping against the top of his head, and the vibration of the words in his chest against Mokuba's back, through his parka. "No sleeping," Seto said. "If you sleep, you lose. That's the game now."

Mokuba wasn't much interested in playing games. He slumped against his brother, shut his heavy eyes. "But you always win against me anyway, Nii-sama."

"Not this time," Seto said. "This is your game, isn't it—you came in here, you found me. You already beat me. Now it's just this damn arena you're going to defeat."

"Okay," Mokuba mumbled. "Later."

" _Not_ later," Seto said. "You're going to have to get up—now—and walk to the next exit. It's closer; you can make it."

That, Mokuba did not believe at all, however absolutely confident Seto sounded. His brother wasn't right all of the time, after all. Just most of it. He snuggled further into Seto's arms, said, "Nope. Can't."

" _Yes_ ," Seto said, giving him a shake, "you can. You will."

"'s'probably locked anyway," Mokuba muttered. It was difficult to get comfortable, when his brother kept rattling him around like he was a chemical suspension that kept settling. 

"No, it won't be; there's no way to lock the emergency hatch mechanism," Seto said.

"Except this one, and the other one."

"They're not locked; they must be being held—" Seto said, and then stopped, freezing in place. "You're right—of course, you're right. For the wheel to be jammed like this, someone must be manually forcing it shut from the other side—"

Seto carefully shifted Mokuba from his lap, with far less care scrambled across the ice on hands and knees to the door and grabbed onto the hatch wheel to haul himself upright. Once standing, he hammered the side of his fist into the door and shouted, over the booming echo of the blow, "Kitagawa! I know you're there—open this damn door!"

There was no answer that Mokuba could hear; his ears rang in the silence, as the echoes died away. He slouched forward on the ice, striving to keep his eyes open, in case his brother looked back and caught him trying to nap.

But Seto was banging on the steel again. His voice was going hoarse, but he strained it to a grating rasp, addressing the mute, unmoving door, "Kitagawa, listen to me. You're no murderer. You were careful; you waited until it was just me in here. You never meant for anyone else to get hurt. And my brother's only a kid—he's not much older than your own daughter, didn't you tell me that once? It's not too late; you can save him." He pressed his hand to the door's unyielding steel, fingers flexing as if to dig into the metal. "You don't want innocent blood on your hands—you won't survive that guilt. Just open the door and let him out. Please."

Seto stopped speaking, or maybe he'd run out of breath, panting in harsh gasps as he leaned against the door. Otherwise there was silence, an absence of sound as empty as the void around them, as the darkness behind Mokuba's eyelids as they fell shut.

Then there was the groan and squeal of metal scraping metal. Without Seto's hand on it, the hatch wheel turned, and the door swung open, out and away, leaving Seto staggering to find his balance.

In the gap between the door frame and the heavy steel stood a man, silhouetted in the bright lights of the corridor behind him. Kitagawa was hunched and squinting, shivering in his tie and suit jacket at the blast of cold from the arena.

He was also armed—of course he was armed. They were in America; he could have bought that small-caliber pistol three blocks from here.

Kitagawa didn't look very confident, pointing the gun at Seto with trembling hands; but he was close enough that he wouldn't need to be any marksman. "Step back from the door, Kaiba-sama," he ordered.

Seto limped backwards, until he was standing before Mokuba, between him and the gun.

"Stop there," Kitagawa commanded, his voice quavering almost as badly as the gun in his hands. "Take off your coat—take off all your gear."

Seto removed the parka, then shrugged out of the trenchcoat underneath, until he was only wearing his turtleneck. He dropped both coats to the icy floor, along with his hat and gloves. Under the thin black shirt his shoulders were visibly shaking, and even in the brighter light from the doorway, his face was gray, lips tinged blue.

"Good—now go on," Kitagawa said, waving the gun nervously. "Get further inside."

Seto's eyes were locked on the firearm, calculating; but Mokuba knew it was futile. They were too far from the door, and Seto was too cold to be able to count on reflexes alone to keep between Mokuba and a bullet. His brother would never risk those odds.

"Do it!" Kitagawa said. "I'm not—I won't hurt Mokuba-sama. I promise. As long as you step back." 

Seto took a limping step back from Mokuba, then another. In the arena's stillness, the chattering of his teeth sounded loudly over the shuffle of his boots on the ice.

Mokuba had his own jaw clenched so tightly his ears were ringing. The utter silence was deafening, after the constant thrum of the fans and blowers.

Wait...how long had those been silent?

"Keeping going!" Kitagawa said, and gestured with the pistol. "And Mokuba-sama, pick up the coats and everything, and come out here."

"Like hell—"

"Mokuba," Seto said, his voice rigid as the door's steel, "do it."

It was difficult to move; he was so exhausted, and his whole body was stiff. Mokuba gathered up the coats in his arms, tried to get his legs under him, only to slip on the ice and sit down again, hard.

"Come here, " Kitagawa said, his voice cracking with desperate nerves. "Hurry up!"

"I can't," Mokuba said, pitching his voice up into a pitiful, tremulous whine. "I can't move, I'm too tired."

"Mokuba," Seto said, and his own voice was near cracking as well.

"I'm _trying_ , Nii-sama! I'm too c-cold, I can't—help me, p-please—"

"Stay back, Kaiba-sama," Kitagawa said. "Here, Mokuba-sama, I'll help you." Keeping the gun trained on Seto, he pulled open the door further, and stepped into the arena, placing his shoes carefully on the icy floor.

Mokuba tensed under his parka, readying himself. One step, two step—

When Kitagawa was three steps inside the arena, only an arms-length away, Mokuba sprang up—or rather staggered up, his legs barely supporting him; but he had just enough strength left to throw himself at Kitagawa.

The man wasn't expecting it, and he wasn't used to firearms; Mokuba was counting on both. Kitagawa's finger was on the trigger, as it never should be, not when he wasn't actually shooting. As Mokuba rammed into him, butting his head into his stomach to knock him down, the gun went off, deafeningly loud.

Dangerously loud, and the security system, just back online, reacted instantly, surrounding Mokuba and Kitagawa both in the thick, solid walls of a translucent SV barrier.

"What is this?" Kitagawa hollered. He tugged futilely at his hand with the pistol, his arm splayed out and safely sealed between the repulsor field's foggy walls, like plastic packaging molded around an action figure. "What did you do!?"

Under that protest, barely audible through the field's barrier, Mokuba could hear his brother shouting his name. He squirmed around—the block they were trapped in was large enough to easily accommodate him, but with Kitagawa as well it was pretty cramped—to see Seto standing outside the vertical block, hands pressed to its smooth exterior as he peered inside.

Seto couldn't release them just yet, of course. Not until he had summoned help, to make sure Kitagawa couldn't get away or do any more harm when the block was opened. 

He'd handle that quickly enough, Mokuba knew. The emergency door was open; Seto had a way out of the arena. Mission accomplished, however haphazardly.

Mokuba raised his hand, gave Seto a thumbs' up. Then he shut his eyes, leaned back into the secure, solid pressure of the repulsor field, and let his brother take care of everything else.

* * *

Mokuba woke to a jouncing jolt. He was lying down instead of propped up by a pressurized field of charged particles; the thin cushion under him was vibrating with the rumble of tires over pavement, and his toes were tingling painfully.

"Mokuba?" Seto said.

He opened his eyes. There was a woman's face over him—middle-aged, freckled, orange hair pulled back in a bun. She smiled at him. " _How do you feel, kid?"_

"My toes hurt," Mokuba said.

" _He says his toes hurt_ ," Seto repeated, in English.

" _That's good,_ " the woman answered, in the same language. " _If he's getting feeling back already, there probably isn't permanent damage. We're only a few minutes away, just hang in there._ "

She patted Mokuba's shoulder, then stood and patted Seto's too. Seto tensed, but didn't push her off. He was sitting next to Mokuba, with one hand resting on Mokuba's arm and the other clutching a thick blue blanket draped over his shoulders.

There was another blanket spread over Mokuba; it was heavy enough to make it hard to move, but he was still shivering under it, his teeth chattering as he asked, "N-nii-sama? W-where—"

"In an ambulance, heading to the nearest hospital," Seto said tersely. "Our medical technicians aren't yet stocked with adequate treatments for frostbite. And they claim my ankle is fractured." His tone implied that either or both conditions were the fault of the EMTs in question. Hopefully the red-headed woman, now turned away, couldn't understand Japanese.

Mokuba frowned. "Where's Kitagawa?"

"At present, in police custody." Seto sounded no more pleased about that. "Until I can do a complete assessment of the arena's systems, I can't determine the full extent of the charges to be leveled against him. But he'll pay for all of this."

"Not all," Mokuba said. "He couldn't have done it by himself, not that much sabotage...someone probably hired him. Or else forced him to do it—maybe they threatened him, or his family..."

"He threatened _you_ ," Seto said, flatly unforgiving. "If the safety system hadn't engaged when you charged him like that—"

"I wouldn't have charged him if I hadn't realized the safeties had finally come back online," Mokuba said. "Which should have happened sooner, and then it wouldn't have been so much trouble, if it had warmed up—"

"From my preliminary review, your reset was the most efficient solution for the problem in the time given," Seto said. "I can't think of a faster method."

"You would've, though, if you'd been outside the arena when this happened."

"Maybe." Seto shrugged. "Maybe not. Especially if you'd been trapped inside, I couldn't have given much time to that problem, when the only thing that mattered would be getting you out."

Mokuba blinked at him. "But I'd have been okay—the safety protocol would've protected me."

Seto shook his head. "Rely on that, when the other systems were down? It wouldn't have been worth the risk."

"Nii-sama..." Mokuba wanted to argue the point, wanted to remind his brother to be more careful. To trust him more...but then, he supposed, he trusted his brother, but had gone into the arena anyway. And he hadn't known about the SV box safety protocol, but even if he had...but it was hard to think of how to turn any of that into words. It was getting hard to think at all; he was feeling warmer now, and the comfort of that combined with the exhaustion weighting every limb was pulling him down—

He realized he couldn't see his brother's face, with a jolt of alarm forced his eyes open. "Nii-sama!"

"Mokuba?" Seto was leaning over him, blue eyes wide, intense.

"No—sleep—" Mokuba squinted to try to keep gravity from dragging his heavy lids shut again. "If I sleep, I lose—"

"No," his brother told him, shaking his head. His hand rubbed Mokuba's arm. "Not anymore. You've already won—we're both out of there."

"I....won?"

"Of course you did." Seto sounded almost offended. "You're my brother, aren't you? You won this round—you saved me. And now it's my turn, so you can sleep. Okay?"

"Okay," Mokuba said, obediently letting his eyes fall closed. Though really he wasn't sure he had much choice in that anyway. But as he drifted off, he heard Seto say, satisfied, "Good," and felt his brother's hand squeeze his arm, a warm reassurance of their victory.


End file.
